As a design challenge to myself, and to get out of my design bubble, I’ve decided to venture into creating soft enamel pins. The challenge is wider than the pins themselves, it also allows me to do a bit of packaging design.

The Take My Money, HBO video project that I was part of last year has been nominated for a Webby Award in the Online Film & Video Short Form category. You can view all of the nominees and vote (for us) here. Hopefully I’ll be updating this page with a picture of a Webby Statuette in my office.

Over the course of a few hours back in June of 2012, I created a one page website called Take My Money, HBO! The goal was simple: Bombard the @HBO and @HBOGO Twitter accounts with tweets stating how much money people would be willing to pay for a standalone HBO GO app.

Last month, nearly three years after the campaign, HBO announced HBO NOW. During the announcement event, HBO contacted me and invited me to New York City for an on camera interview.

For the record, Caputo is pronounced Cuh-pew-toe.

I thought it was a little odd that HBO was flying me to NYC and putting me up in a hotel just for an interview… But as soon as Paulie and Big Puss flung open the interview room door I knew I’d been duped. They lied to me. They tricked me. And I loved every minute of it.

I mentioned in my last post that I entered a two page comic contest recently on reddit. I’m thrilled to report that Terminal C (which you can read below), one of the three entries I was part of, has won Best Overall Comic. Not only that, but our team won the rest of the honors as well. Orlando Caicedo was named Best Artist, Sean Callahan named Best Colorist, and I was named Best Letterer. Best Writer honors did go to our Writer, Matt Hill, but not for Terminal C. He won for his story on Home, which I also worked on.

I enjoy comic books. I’ve been reading and collecting since I was a kid, but it was never really something that I could see myself doing professionally. Recently my wife and I went out for our anniversary dinner and the conversation turned to our goals, both personal and professional, for the next year of our lives. I’d been mulling it over up until that point, but right then I decided to try my hand at comic book lettering and design.

I feel design is something that just comes naturally to some people. I’ve found this is the case with lettering as well. Right out of the gate, I feel pretty good about my work. I already know Illustrator well, and I know most of the ins and outs of printing.

Two days after making this decision, /r/ComicBookCollabs announced a two-page comic contest in the interest of teaming up creatives without having to commit to a long term or large project. So far, I’ve joined four teams and have submitted one complete work, Home, which can be seen above. As I’m the last step in the process, it remains to be seen if the other three will reach me by the submission deadline, but I hope so.

I’ve also joined the Weaselmeizters team as of issue #3, which I’m working on now. Weaselmeizters is an ongoing title that was successfully funded on IndieGoGo back in September. Issue #1 is currently available with #2 on it’s way.

Stocky was an exercise in patience for me. The past year has been a busy one, but I actually started design and development of Stocky in June of 2013. A little more than a year later, I present Stocky; A Stock Photography Marketplace Theme.

Last month I was invited to speak at the first Envato Live in downtown Chicago. I met some awesome people including Envatoians (I think I made that word up) as well as a number community members and a handful of other authors. Plus I got a sweet hoodie.

You can see my talk below.

Head here to read more about the event and watch videos of the other Elite Authors who spoke.

Join My Newslist

A Little About Jake

Jake Caputo
I'm a web designer and developer currently living just outside of Chicago, IL. I have a passion for awesome design and functionality, specifically using WordPress. I drink copious amounts of coffee, read a lot of comic books, and spend a lot of time with my wife and our two cats. I try to live my life as if I'm in a sitcom.